After Harvey: Why Didn't We Evacuate Houston?

Texas sees plenty of big storms on the gulf. They just usually don't stick around

It became evident, late Saturday, to anyone with the habit of checking their radar app, that Houston was set to be on the receiving end of God’s own firehose. As the undercards of the Mayweather-MacGregor fight did their thing, Harvey’s ferocious rain bands set up to lash the Bayou City with 15 inches of rain.

Despite admonitions of “don’t be a baby,” a friend of mine left a Mayweather-MacGregor watch party before the main event. He needed to get home anyway: “We were supposed to go to early morning prayer at church.” Plenty of other boxing fans, unimpressed by Hurricane Harvey after a nearly rain-less Saturday afternoon, stayed to watch Mayweather prevail, then ended up crashing on couches after streets became impassable. Church was canceled, along with pretty much everything else around town.

Sunday a “Cajun Navy” of private boats joined with the Coast Guard and the first responders to rescue thousands trapped in flooded homes, especially around Scarsdale in southeast Houston. Statewide, 300,000 are without power. An old folks’ home got flooded waist high; rescue workers found wet and cold seniors who had been sitting in wheelchairs for hours. At least five have died across the region. Airports are closed; shelters filling.

My street in the Heights neighborhood near downtown is prone to flooding during big thunderstorms. From late Saturday into Sunday it was a river for 10 hours, the high water mark reached the steps of our front porch. We were lucky; our 110-year-old house has stayed dry. Thousands of other homes are ruined.

Like White Oak, most of Houston’s snaking tributaries empty into Buffalo Bayou, which passes downtown then opens up into the Houston Ship Channel. From there it’s on to Galveston Bay and on into the gulf. As of Sunday afternoon 10 Gulf Coast oil refineries that usually handle 2.2 million bpd were shut down, according to Platts, including ExxonMobil’s massive 560,500 bpd Baytown plant. It’s also bad scene along billionaires’ row in Houston’s tony River Oaks where Buffalo Bayou has spilled its banks to engulf Kirby Drive. “They’re all screwed. And yet not really,” says a banker. “They can wait it out in Aspen while they rebuild.”

In the past century fewer than 10 storms have dumped more rain on Houston than Harvey. It really was a remarkable amount of rain, easily the most my wife and I have seen in 13 years here. Rain amounts in the region got as high as 27 inches over two days. Neighbors say Saturday night with Harvey was worse than the four days of 2001’s Tropical Storm Allison, which sat over Houston, dumping 20+ inches and causing widespread flooding. White Oak Bayou near the Heights started the day at 40 feet, the highest since 2008 with Hurricane Ike. With Sunday night’s rains it could very well break its 51 foot record from 1935. High water is everywhere; it’s impossible to get around.

Sunday night, with new bands of torrential rain descending on Houston, spokesman Jeff Lindner with the Harris County Flood Control District (encompassing Houston) announced that they would soon release water from the Barker and Addicks reservoirs about 15 miles west of downtown. Lindner explained the releases will flood hundreds of homes on the west side of the reservoirs, which have become filled to the brim after three days of Harvey. The released water will make its way to Buffalo Bayou, adding to the flooding around downtown.

Citizens around the reservoirs will have until midday Monday to get their homes ready for what could be two months of flooding, said Lindner. A friend whose house is in the effected area is angry. "I smell massive suits," she said. "We've never flooded, ever."

So. Why didn't Houston evacuate?

For the past week, forecasters had warned Houstonians that Harvey would inflict 30 inches of rain on southeast Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott, said “if I were in Houston I would head north.” But Houstonians didn’t listen to him.

Maybe the Houston-Dallas rivalry has something to do with it. But honestly, it was hard for Texans to believe that Harvey could really be “catastrophic.” We get a lot of storms off the gulf here, but we’re accustomed to them hitting and then moving on. Texas is a huge place after all. Rockport, where Harvey came ashore Friday, is 225 miles away. We barely had any rain Friday or Saturday. No one believes in a 500-year storm until after it's hit.

Finding dry land on an overpass to highway 610. (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

But there’s more to the stubborness. Civic memory. Back in 2005 Houston authorities urged citizens to evacuate as Hurricane Rita bore down on the Gulf Coast. It was just weeks after Katrina decimated New Orleans. Leaving town seemed like a good idea, so my wife and I boarded up the house and set out to stay with some friends in San Antonio. Along with millions of other evacuees, we spent 8 overnight hours in a gruelling crawl west on I-10. The shoulders were littered with cars that had run out of gas, their occupants sitting on the roofs, watching the scene. Fleeing turned out to have been a far worse option than hunkering down and enduring what turned out to be a lackluster storm.

After Rita, Houstonians mostly stuck around for Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Ike left us without power for more than a week but at least didn’t stick around. Since then the Bayou City has invested hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into engineering vast catchment basins throughout the Buffalo Bayou watershed to absorb storm waters. It wasn’t surprising Friday when Mayor Sylvester Turner told residents “Please think twice before trying to leave Houston en masse.” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett this morning recommended that those who can should shelter in place for what may be 20 more inches of rain.

Abbott, in comments Sunday afternoon, didn’t play any told-you-so: “Now is not the time to second-guess the decisions that were made." Rather, he said, the state was deploying all available equipment to assist in water rescues. Not waiting for an invitation, scores of shallow draft boats have already descended on Houston and surrounding towns. Says Abbott, “They now know the cavalry is coming.” Monday morning the rescues continue.

Nominations are still open for the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30. If you know of a young entrepreneurs or inventors creating the future of energy, drop me a line at chelman@forbes.com.

Since joining Forbes in 1999 I've written more than 100 magazine stories, including features on the likes of T. Boone Pickens, Harold Hamm, Aubrey McClendon, Michael Dell and Ross Perot. Follow me on twitter @chrishelman.